


The (Haunted) House on Patch Island

by elzierav



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Brunch, Cheese, Clover with glasses, Domestic Fluff, Gift Fic, Happy Ending, Haunted Houses, M/M, Moving On, Pumpkin pie, but it's just fluff, exorcist character, mentioned Tyrian Callows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27244666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elzierav/pseuds/elzierav
Summary: While with Raven, Tai had come to cherish the ephemeral calm between two tempests, with Qrow he adored the slow, but stubborn drizzle that fell always, calming, healing. It wasn’t perfect, there were still tears, but both men found themselves saying thank you more than sorry, and that was what mattered.And then, the event happened.Request: "a ghost of one of Qrow, Clover or Tai, somehow reassuring the other 2 that it's okay to move on without him... Then they are happy and the ghost can find peace."
Relationships: Clover Ebi/Taiyang Xiao Long, past Qrow Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	The (Haunted) House on Patch Island

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Victorious56](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victorious56/gifts).



> Happy birthday Vicky! Hope you enjoy <3
> 
> warnings: mentioned death (ghosts, so that's a given), mild swearing

The truck’s engine purred in the alleyway before the house, barely audible under the pouring rain. The stormy skies groaned overhead in thinly veiled menace, raindrops crashing onto the windows and streaking the glass panels with parallel tears. Qrow’s breath wasn’t even ghosting against the glass, his breath was cold, his hands were cold. The metal rings on his fingers felt icy as he rubbed his palms together for meagre warmth, with mitigated success. Still, he inhaled deeply and stepped out onto the porch under the rain, toward the stacked suitcases and cardboard boxes the truck had left before the doorstep. 

Despite the pouring rain, Tai was already busy, his strong, tawny arms picking up a tall pile of boxes. The usually sunny blonde of his hair was drenched, dyed a dull pale chestnut. Rainwater rivulets ran down his sinewy biceps, kissing every vein, caressing every scar. His breaths came in short, warm pants, but Qrow couldn’t tell if Tai had been crying, or if his eyes were red and puffy because of staying open under the raging rain. 

Not like Tai would’ve wanted Qrow to know, anyway. And Qrow understood that, respected that. After what happened, Tai needed time. He needed quietness, he needed silence. He wouldn’t have decided to move back to Patch, after all, to that windswept rock in the middle of the sea, in the middle of nowhere, if it weren’t because he needed space. Because of what happened. 

Even to Qrow, much of what happened remained unexplained. He hoped Tai would open up and talk about it, let Qrow support him and help him showering the burden. But Qrow wouldn’t overstep any boundaries for that, instead willing to wait for Tai to take his time. After all, now that they were stuck together in a house on an island in the middle of nowhere, they should have a lot of time to themselves. 

In silence, Qrow steps out under the rain and picks up another heavy box, carrying it up the steps and following Tai back into the house. 

Their wordless carousel of boxes and suitcases continues for long minutes, unable to hear their own footsteps, even to hear their own exhausted, panting breaths under the deafening downpour. When it was all over, Tai stepped back outside to check if anything was left out - and remained there for a while, on the porch under the rain. 

Qrow wondered if it was really because Tai didn’t want anyone to see him cry. Anyone including Qrow, his former lover and brother-in-law.

Whatever the reason was, Qrow just wished to help, in any capacity he could. Even if it wasn’t much, he’d wait for Tai to be ready to let him help more. Even if for now, it only meant spending time together moving boxes in silence, because in times like this, even the smallest of gestures mattered. 

Apparently, Zwei agreed, as the black and white corgi huddled its fluffy body against Qrow’s soaked legs. And even that tiny gesture mattered. 

* * *

The house on Patch Island was where Qrow and Tai had first met. 

The house had been in the Branwen family for decades when Qrow inherited it. When Tai was married to Raven, Qrow’s twin sister, they’d come to the house regularly on weekends or vacation, to escape the bustling agitation of the city. When little Yang was born, Raven and Tai would drop her off there with Uncle Qrow whenever they travelled for work or needed time to themselves. Time to themselves, as it turned out, only was successful in the capacity that they figured out their marriage would never work, and they parted ways with shared custody of the little girl. Over time, certain wounds healed, and they eventually became friends again. 

Soon after the divorce, Raven moved down south to an even bigger city and started dating Summer. The two women got a daughter, with some help from Raven’s twin, a little sister for Yang named Ruby. Tai, meanwhile, nursed his broken heart back to health in Patch, and slowly, eventually found love in the arms of none other than his ex-wife’s twin brother.

Learning to love either of the siblings was like taming savages birds that could not be caged, like caressing winds that could not be stopped, that existed only to roam free. But while with Raven, Tai had come to cherish the ephemeral calm between two tempests, with Qrow he adored the slow, but stubborn drizzle that fell always, calming, healing. It wasn’t perfect, there were still tears, but both men found themselves saying thank you more than sorry, and that was what mattered. 

And then, the event happened. 

Tai had been all over the continent for his work as of late when it happened, the work of a journalist meant he could never truly put his suitcases down anywhere. He had been more married to his work than he had ever been to anyone or anything else, but in a way he was happy like that, he knew it, and Qrow knew it too. 

He rented a small apartment in town, but he wasn’t even staying there when it happened. All the same, he returned to his flat, packed his few things, and took the plane, then the ferry back to Patch as soon as he heard it happened. He hoped this time again, Patch would be a place of healing for him, after what happened. 

So many memories haunted the house. With time, Tai had learnt every irregularity in the old, creaking wooden staircase, every tiniest crack that slithered across the patterned bathroom tiles, just as he’d mapped every asperity against Qrow’s body, every angle, every curve, just as he’d engraved the raspy, velvety sound of Qrow’s voice forever in his memory. 

All the same, Tai had never noticed the rattling sound coming from upstairs before. Was there something wrong with the roof? Was the wind howling through the attic now? That didn’t sound right. The noise was less continuous, more like… footsteps? Mice, ferrets, squirrels? Perhaps he should call experts to deal with whatever animal life had made the attic its home. Distractedly, he looked through the phonebook on the desk, between signed copies of Qrow’s latest novels and a pile of unopened envelopes from the mail he’d just taken in minutes ago. 

Or perhaps he was just tired, and he was imagining it all. Just like he imagined he’d forgotten some of the boxes outside the door earlier - his memory wasn’t doing great these days. It didn’t help, trying to tiptoe around the memories of the event that happened.

Dragging out some blankets from his bags, he thought he might as well sleep on the couch by the fireplace. He didn’t want to sleep up there, not in the guest bedroom either - not just yet, after what had happened there. Not to mention that there might be wild animals living upstairs and he wouldn’t want any of them to lurk near his face while he slept. 

It took him long moments to find sleep, moments so long that he lost track of time. But then, as of late, his perception of time stretched like taffy, stuck like glue, but again, it was for him hard not to cling to the past and let time run its course, after what had happened. In due time, he’d let time flow by. In due time, he’d dare think and talk about what happened. 

But now wasn’t the time, now didn’t need to be the time. 

* * *

When Qrow walked into the living room, Tai’s tea-stained teacup rested on the table, cold and mostly empty. 

The TV was on, droning on about whatever depressing news people wanted to hear about - the weather forecast announced would be long days before it stopped raining over Patch, which wasn’t surprising seeing the water that continuously poured down from pearly gray skies, devoid of any slightest hint of warm sunlight, devoid of any shimmering sliver of blue. In other news, a suspected serial killer had been caught in Vale trying to board a plane for Atlas, a certain Tyrian Callows who looked deranged enough even from just his mugshots. The reporter went on about the series of crimes he was accused of, each one more grisly than the previous until it escalated to the attempted assassination of a whole family, leaving only a four-year-old unharmed - just the most cheerful way to start a Monday morning, really. 

Not that Tai seemed to care, really. Zwei comfortably perched on his legs resting on the living room’s low wooden table, the blonde distractedly was filling in some paperwork on his laptop, a patterned plaid draped around his shoulders. Qrow would’ve offered to help, even though his deep-seated hatred for paperwork was no secret to anyone. Qrow would’ve offered anything, anything he could do to help, but Tai still didn’t appear ready to talk to him. It’d take time. Tai needed time, he needed space after what happened, and the least Qrow could do was grant him that. 

The least Qrow could do was not to disturb Tai’s quiet grief, but still, he wished he could help more. Still, he reached for the empty, neglected teacup, patting Zwei’s head as he lifted the porcelain object and took it to the kitchen. The cup was part of a set delicately painted with deep blues and stark whites by Raven’s own hands, for Qrow’s sister was skilled with both colours and shapes, having gained some notoriety as an up-and-coming painter and sculptor. Everyone in their strange little family was an artist in their very own way, so the house was full of books, paintings, and odd objects that carried the memories of those who made them, even when they weren’t present on Patch Island. 

Extracting the tea strainer from the cup, Qrow emptied it and refilled it with the mixture of tea leaves he knew were Tai’s favourite, delicate hints of summer berry scents floating upon a heady background of rich black tea, thick as an impenetrable forest. He turned on the kettle until the water boiled, knowing full well how searing hot the blonde liked his tea on rainy days. The kettle’s familiar sigh signalling the water had started to evaporate soon reached his ears, and he filled Tai’s teacup again, watching the tea turbulently diffuse away from the strainer through the clear hot water. 

When he walked back to the living room to return the cup to its original position, the corgi wagged his tail wildly, while the human her was perched on took no notice, apparently busy pencilling down his to-do-list onto the margin of the phonebook. Unwilling to intrude, Qrow stepped away quietly, only to hear the clink of porcelain against wood as Tai picked up the teacup and immediately set it back down, muttering all the curse words in existence under his breath after having burnt his tongue with boiling hot tea. 

Shrugging, Qrow let out a fond sigh. Some things never changed. Some things about Tai never changed, even after all the hardships he’d gone through, and maybe that was for the better. The man he’d known, the man he’d loved was somewhere in there still, even if he wasn’t ready to open up to Qrow just yet. He allowed himself to watch the burnt, blushing blonde for a few seconds, before heading to the kitchen and refilling Zwei’s bowl with croquettes, the mere sound of which filled the puppy with utter glee.

* * *

Eventually, the rain had subsided. 

Whenever it rained on Patch, it rained for days on end, and then it stopped raining, just as abruptly as it had begun. And then, slowly, timidly, the sun came back out. As soon as Tai had seen the first golden sunray in the morning, drifting in through the dusty windows, he knew the sun was out, and he headed outside too. 

The back of the house was covered with ivy. It was hauntingly beautiful and appropriate enough for a country house in the middle of nowhere, but the ivy had crept into the cracks between the bricks, damaging the walls, and was threatening to cover the windows, blocking the sunlight from entering the house. Qrow had done his best to take care of the house and garden, but now it was Tai’s turn to work in the garden, and panting and grunting under the effort, he vigorously ripped out yet another clump of treacherous ivy. 

His hands were blistered beneath his gardening gloves. His clothes were stained with mud, his hair was full of leaves and moss, his eyes were swollen from pollen and dust, every breeze that blew caressed the sheen of sweat on his skin and made him shiver. But he continued to work, obstinately, relentlessly like a zombie. Never taking his eyes off his work, never thinking of anything but his work, so he’d never have to think about what had happened. 

He’d dug out the old rose bush from the back of the yard, it hadn’t survived through the winter. Of the two red maple trees in which the birds liked to nest, only one was barely alive - Tai would have to think about ordering new seeds, about planting things that would survive through the harshness of the Patch weather. Currently, past the season of sunflowers, the garden looked rather barren. The ground was salty and infertile this close to the sea, and only unwanted weeds and wild clovers persisted through every season. 

If he wanted more fragile or exotic plants, he’d have to check if there was still space in the small greenhouse at the end of the garden. 

He hadn’t entered the greenhouse for a while, and for some reason his hair stood on end as he turned the rusty, creaking door knob and entered the metal and glass construction. As the wind whistled through the trees overhead, the leaves mysteriously rustled against the glass overhead, projecting ever-shifting, dark shadows. 

His eyes took long seconds to adapt to the relative darkness beneath the trees and the dusty glass. But the distinct sound of tapping at the other end of the greenhouse, the sound of precipitant footsteps… could it just be the wind, the branches, the leaves? An icy breath billowed through his hair, sending shivers down his spine, and something cold touched the back of his neck. Startled, he swiveled around - only to see a large cobweb dangling in the air, oscillating under the draft of cold air that came in from the open door. 

Sheepishly pushing the greenhouse’s door closed, he ventured further inside, trying to ignore the ominous sounds of stepping and rustling in the background that sounded too much ripped straight out of the pages of one Qrow’s best-selling scary novels to be real, that sounded too much like his mind replaying what had happened, the night it happened, or rather how he imagines it could have happened. 

A piercing shriek echoed to his right.

Both the glass and his eardrums painfully were left vibrating in its wake. Immediately, he turned to the side to barely discern the vague silhouette of a mouse scurrying away, a dark shape against the dark ground and the dead leaves. However, his movement was stopped dead by an immovable force against his shoulder. An immovable force, hard, cold, smooth against his warm skin, causing his heart to miss a beat and eliciting goosebumps all across his clammy skin.

He turned around, to find himself faced with a pallid silhouette the height and size of a human being, covered from head to toe in a dirty white sheet, briefly buffeted by the breeze. 

Mustering all the courage present in each and every fiber of his body, he yanks the fabric downward, revealing the shape underneath. White, dead eyes stare blankly back at him amidst an otherwise expressive face, features pale as alabaster. It’s nothing more than one of Raven’s sculptures, stored away in the greenhouse because they ran out of space in the house.

Half a dozen other statues remained covered in the greenhouse, but Tai didn’t leave before unveiling them all, one by one in an attempt to make the place look less lugubrious, more lived in. The only traces of life he found were a small nest from which a pair of small birds fluttered away through a high window when he approached them, alongside a lone, red rose whose sanguine petals littered the dusty floor. Other than that, everything was still as stone. 

Only then did he notice the quiet piano tune that seemed to eerily echo from the house, all the way across the garden, the melancholic melody of which hadn’t graced his soul for many years even though it had always been one of his favourite songs.

* * *

There had been hints before, but now Qrow was certain.

Tai was possessed. 

He hadn’t said a word to anyone, not even Zwei since he arrived, that haunted expression never leaving his features. He seemed to react as if he’d seen or heard a ghost when no one else perceived anything out of the usual, the corgi and Qrow included. He’d called a handful of specialists to rid the house of rats, ferrets, bees, whatever he thought was haunting the attic, when Qrow had known for decades no such pests plagued his abode. Perhaps more alarmingly, he seemed obsessed with digging holes in the garden, as if to unearth some or other devil or abomination from the depths of hell. 

What truly alerted Qrow, however, was when the blonde didn’t even react, didn’t even bat an eye when he waved his hand right before Tai’s face in the garden, before scampering off in the greenhouse as if chasing an apparition, and Qrow trailing after him could hardly help at all.

Still, Qrow wanted to help. Still, he needed to help. 

On the kitchen table, next to the phone book and Tai’s favourite tea mug, lay a pile of medication boxes next to a prescription from a certain Dr. Polendina, psychiatrist specialised in grief. Several of the pills had been ripped away from their casing, not that they seemed to have any effect on Tai’s erratic behaviour, unfortunately. Maybe they should wait. Maybe it would take time. Dealing with grief usually took time. But perhaps, perhaps there were other options that could be thought of, if Qrow wanted to help. 

Especially if Tai was possessed.

If Qrow’s own paranormal novels, that had gained reasonable success under a pen name, were any indication, the symptoms weren’t just grief, but possession. Ordinarily, he would have scolded any reader for taking that too literally and not understanding how his writing wove a metaphor for trauma and loss. But now he had to try everything at hand to help Tai, he might as well consider that possibility. 

Leafing through the phone book’s thin pages that project a faint breeze onto his skin when flipped, past the pages the blonde dog-eared of psychologists, gardening shops, and pest eradication services, Qrow scanned through the lines and lines of places and phone numbers, until he happened upon a name that caught his attention: Dr. Clover Ebi, exorcist.

* * *

The sun was finally peeking out from between the clouds when the doorbell rang. Tai squinted as he walked down the stairs, sun rays playing with the weightless swirls of dust floating in the stairway. He hadn’t seen such a warm shade of sunlight for what appeared as an eternity - weeks? Months? The passage of time still somewhat eluded the numbness of his mind. The muffled sound of his warm slippers echoed down the wooden steps to answer the door. 

The visitor at the door, cutting a bright silhouette on the sunny background, was a bespectacled chestnut-haired man with a weathered leather briefcase and smiling teal eyes who introduced himself as Clover Ebi, exorcist. 

“Sorry, man, but I don’t think I called for an exorcist?” Tai mumbles, running a confused hand through his messy hair. 

“No, sir, you didn’t but your resident house ghost did. Mr. Branwen, I presume? I’m Clover, we talked on the phone yesterday.”

Still amicably grinning, the brunette reached out a hand toward the empty space next to Tai as if to shake an invisible hand, much to Tai’s wide-eyed bewilderment. 

“Wait… Qrow is a… ghost? In my house?” the blonde stammered, at loss for words. 

A silence - a tense silence, each second trickling through as slowly as honey flows. Then, a storm of footsteps resonated up the staircase and Zwei trotted after the noise, hopping upstairs step by step. 

“I apologise for scaring your house ghost off,” Clover spoke, fidgeting with his glasses. “But do you mind if I run after him? Going off what he said in our phone call, the two of us have some talking to do.”

“Sure… be my ghost,” Tai replied.

“Huh?”

“It’s a pun.”

“For be my guest?” 

The exorcist exhaled in a quiet chuckle, genuine amusement in his aqua irises.

“Yeah,” the blonde shrugged as his visitor scrambled up the steps, his briefcase in hand.

* * *

"I know it's a lot to take in," Clover spoke carefully, "you're a ghost, and you're deceased. Take a breath. It's going to be okay."

“You can see me even though I’m a ghost?” Qrow asked, staring out the bedroom’s small window and turning his back to Clover. 

“If I couldn’t, I’d be a pretty lame exorcist.”

“That’s fair… But the phone call?”

“Oh, our phones at the exorcism agency are tuned to the afterlife bandwidth.”

“Zwei can see and hear me too?”

The dog sat against Qrow’s leg, panting softly as the ghost reached down to pet its head. 

“Dogs perceive ghosts the same as living beings. Humans however...”

“Wait, hold up, so Tai can’t see me or hear me?”

“No, he can only hear the sounds you make when interacting with the environment.”

“And that’s why he’s been acting so bizarrely?”

“Indeed.”

“But how come you can see me and talk with me, if other humans can’t?”

“A combination of these polarised glasses, lucky trinkets I carry around, and a lifetime of mental training not to be overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of all the souls of every living being that roam this Earth, from the tiniest ant to the oldest dinosaur...”

“You can see dinosaurs? Funky... Okay, okay, so you can’t just get Tai to do the same, so how do we help him?”

“Usually, the living call exorcists to help the ghosts in their house pass over, not the opposite. It’s never happened for me before that a ghost called me to get help for a living relative...”

“Well, boy scout, this time around I called to help my boyfriend, so it-”

“... Oh. Mr Xiao Long was your lover. I didn’t know.”

“No… I mean, yes… sort of. It’s complicated.”

“And you don’t remember what happened?”

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember how you died?”

“Nope. Didn’t even figure out I was a ghost, until you tagged along.”

“I thought so, judging by your reaction. Don’t worry, it’s quite common to block out the circumstances of one’s death in ghosts who haven’t been dead for long, to the point of not knowing you’re a ghost too, that’s normal especially when they passed away in such traumatic conditions.”

“... Traumatic conditions?”

Drawing a shaky breath, Clover extracted a series of neat newspaper cuts from his briefcase.

“Tyrian Callows, the serial killer. He was here, the police thought he was after you specifically. Three weeks and four days ago, he broke in...”

“Three weeks and four days? That’s when Raven and Summer came around to visit with the kids...”

“Unfortunately, Summer Rose didn’t make it. Your sister was left for dead too, she’s in a coma now, she’s still in hospital.”

“And Ruby? And Yang?”

“Callows pushed the older girl down the stairs, she got a concussion and multiple fractures, but she’ll recover. She’s staying in the same hospital as her mother. Ruby Rose was the only one the killer didn’t even notice, so she’s the only one unharmed. She was asleep in her bed the whole time. When she woke up and saw what happened, she ran to the neighbours and they called the police. That ultimately led up to the police finding and capturing Callows.”

“Where is she now?”

“Back to her boarding school. She was so terrified she refused to return to the house, after what she witnessed there.”

Qrow clenched his fists, expecting his heart to beat faster, but it didn’t accelerate since it wasn’t beating at all. No tears could wet his dead eyes, no memories could flow back to his mind as he wondered if it was because he’d been blocking those horrific reminiscences so hard, just like Tai’s mind had been tiptoeing around the issue. Just to cope, just for Qrow’s mangled ghost soul to survive unscathed, not that it was even needed anymore since he’s been dead, long dead now, for three weeks and four days… 

No tears could fall, and no sadness could fill him - only anger, anger and indignation at what his little girls had to go through, what his sister had to go through, what Tai was still facing right now...

“Ruby’s four. My niece is four years old. And she had to see the bodies of her mothers and uncle lying in their own blood, and her injured sister, all because I had the misfortune to attract some crazed psycho...”

“Qrow, it’s not your fault… I can call you Qrow, right? The guy is a sociopath, you couldn’t have known. You shouldn’t blame yourself over it.”

“Oh yeah? And how would you know anything about it, with your little fancy glasses and rabbit foot and superstitious four-leaf trinkets?”

“My job involves helping people, both living and deceased, deal with grieving. I know a thing or two about having to deal with the guilt associated with traumatic events.”

Oh, of course. Just like in the novels. Just like in the metaphors.

“Look, pal, I’m sorry I was mad at you. You have no fault in this whole story, you’re only here because I called you. So you know how to help Tai?”

Because if there was even the slightest reason for Qrow to still exist in this plane, for him to still haunt this house, he had to make the most of it to help Tai, to help everyone who’d been a direct or collateral victim of these crimes cope. Even though figuring out all that truly happened, Qrow understood it wouldn’t be an easy or fast process for them to help Tai through.

“First I need to explain to him the whole situation. Then I’ll see what we can do from there.”

“Thanks, Clover. That really means a lot.”

“It’s only my job, and I aim to serve.”

“Then serve well, lucky charm, and take Zwei with you. Dog cuddles will be helpful while you two have that talk.”

As if on cue, the corgi prances to the exorcist’s side, excitedly hopping up and down before his knees. 

“Right. Thanks for the heads up, Qrow. C’mon good boy, let’s head downstairs.”

* * *

Clover pushed his glasses up his nose again before laying his hands back down on the wooden kitchen table. Explaining all this to Tai had proven harder than expected, especially since…

“You really haven’t seen the Ghost movie?” the exorcist asked. “Or The Sixth Sense? Or The Others? Because if you did, you’d understand what I mean, but now I’d feel bad about spoiling the plot twist in The Sixth Sense...”

“I mean, you kind of already did,” the journalist sighed, profound blue eyes blinking as he rested his head atop his fist. “Why, were you planning on giving me movie homework for next time?”

The brunette breathed in deeply - if there was a next time, and Tai was willing to pay for it since Qrow, as a deceased person, could hardly legally spend money on anything, that boded rather well for Clover. 

“Oh, so there is gonna be a next time… And you don’t have to do any homework, I just expected you’d know a bit more about ghost lore since you dated a best-selling author of horror and paranormal novels.”

“But I don’t like being scared…?”

At least Clover admired the sincerity in the man’s tone, in his unusually ultramarine eyes. That such a strong, well-built man was scared of ghosts and revenants behind a TV screen wasn’t devoid of entertaining irony, but he’d encountered all kinds of clients throughout his exorcism career and had learnt to respect their fears and tastes. 

“That’s entirely fair, and you absolutely don’t have to watch any of -”

“Only if you watch them with me?”

“Pardon?”

“C’mon, don’t let a man watch scary movies at night alone. Join me for a ghost movie night.”

Was the blonde... flirting? Through doubtful puns and date invitations? If there was one thing Clover had gradually come to understand and appreciate throughout his work, it had to be that people in grief were people first and foremost. They didn’t spend their time wallowing in sorrow and chasing phantoms within the walls of their houses, they had hobbies and hatreds, they lived, learned, and sometimes loved again, for as long as they were alive they would not, could not, shall not let their grief define them.

While witnessing Tai’s coping mechanisms through flirting was nice, it wasn’t exactly fitting from Clover to give in to such a request from a client.

“That wouldn’t be very professional,” he stuttered, eyes flitting down to his briefcase on the table.

“If you’re worried about working after hours, I can treat you to dinner in exchange. Since we still have a bit of sun today, I was planning to grill some halloumi cheese and veggies. Courgettes, peppers, aubergines...”

The exorcist swallowed audibly. Dragging cheese into this was unfair, utterly unfair.

“Alright. You had me at halloumi.”

* * *

“Okay, that was a good plot twist,” Tai conceded, setting down his emptied plate on the low table between the sofa and the television before adjusting the patterned plaid on his legs. “I get your point better now, about the ghosts not realising that they’re -”

“You barely watched anything,” Clover protested, still chewing on a still-warm piece of grilled courgette and half-molten Cypriot cheese, “you were hiding under the covers most of the time!”

“Well, it’s not my fault if we’re watching scary movies in a haunted house at night. I don’t know how you can peacefully go to sleep after this, because I’d be too terrified to close my eyes. I need to cleanse my brain by watching something non-threatening. Isn’t there some less spooky ghost stuff? Like, I don’t know…”

“Phantom of the Opera?” the brunette shrugs, moving aside to let Zwei snuggle in between the two men on the sofa.

“How did you...”

“Lucky guess. That was my favourite when I grew up. All the terrifying ghosts and creatures can’t match how scary it is to know a human like you and I can be at least just as twisted, and at the end of the day it’s a relatable story about someone learning to move on from the death of her father and finding earthly love again.”

“You know Qrow was the understudy for the Phantom, in our college production? What a brat.”

“Well, he does have a good voice.”

“With his luck, the main actor for the part got sick once, and he was so nervous to play the part… In the end he did amazingly, of course.”

“I bet he did,” Clover chuckled softly, teal eyes averting the melancholic lights within his client’s starry irises at the remembrance of a lost loved one. “Now should we put it on?”

“If you’re still in for a movie marathon night, I’m in.”

The exorcist could turn away from those eyes, but the blonde’s playful wink proved particularly hard to miss.

“Yeah, I’m game.”

* * *

“Wait, you have the old stage version of Cats?” Clover perked up, scanning through Tai’s movie collection while the journalist still hummed the tune to The Music Of The Night, his voice adorably hesitant as it approached the ethereal high notes. 

“Yeah, I mean no offense, but last year’s Cats film is absolutely terrifying.” Tai said. “I’d rather face any of the ghosts from the other things we saw than any of these human hybrid CGI abominations.”

“On that we agree. So can I put it on?”

“Yeah, sure, that’d be a-meow-zing.”

“Purr-fect. I hoped you’d say that.”

* * *

“You know, Cloves, I thought you were a dog person, seeing how much Zwei loves you,” the blonde commented, idly petting the corgi’s long body while its little pink tongue licked Clover’s calves through the warm blanket. “Didn’t expect you to love the Cats musical so much.”

“I love cats too, my family always had cats when I was a child. But dogs are an exorcist’s best friend, they can perceive things that humans cannot. In certain ways, I’m a bit more like a dog than your average person.”

“So you are a dog person.”

“Part man, part dog, I’m my own best friend,” Clover added a wink of his own, Tai’s reaction lighting up as if he’d seen a shooting star.

“Oh my gosh. Is that from Spaceballs?”

“You like it too?”

“Star Wars but with a dog? And corny jokes? Are you kidding me?”

“Wanna give it a go now?”

As Tai leant forward to put the movie on, Clover reflected on just how lonely it was, being his own best friend, chasing creatures of the occult through the dark, through the night, deemed as mere superstition by most of society. At least being with Tai was companionable, natural, as simple as breathing, as laughing, as living and loving. And the warmth emanating from his client’s presence by his side, through the layers of quilts that separated them, was far from unwelcome.

* * *

“Now that we’ve done this, when do we watch the Phantom Menace?” the blonde wondered, packing away his Star Wars box set. “Because this order is nice and all when it comes to following Vader’s story for Star Wars marathons, but I wanna see the kid pod racing. And Darth Maul’s fight scene, isn’t that the best in the whole series?”

“Hmm,” Clover murmured, half asleep against Tai’s shoulder while Zwei, curled up like a doughnut on his lap, utterly prevented him from making any movement. “But apart from that Episode I is boring.”

“You could say the same about Episode III, setting aside the final battle on Mustafar.”

“Okay, Star Wars is fine, but I prefer the parody version.”

“And Star Trek?”

“Star Trek? I’ve heard a lot about it, but I’ve only seen the ones with Chris Pine.”

“Ah, young people these days,” Tai bemoaned, wrapping a strong arm around the back of the sofa next to Clover’s mess of hair. “The Kelvin timeline looks fancy and lens-flare-y, but The Original Series and its movies are the real deal.”

“But… Chris Pine has got such beautiful blue eyes! They’re so expressive!”

“C’mon, disaster gay, time for me to fix your film education. You gotta see the one with the whales.”

* * *

“So what do you think of all that gay energy in subtle glances and stolen touches? Can your Pine himbo top that?” Tai teased, before noticing that Clover had finally fallen asleep, Zwei’s pompom tail twitching at the sound of his soft snore. 

The exorcist was likely exhausted, his host realised, after a long day of working with ghosts which probably required a great deal of focus. A small smile playing at his lips, he adjusted the blanket covering Clover’s sleepy body on the sofa, leaving the dog curled up at his feet before turning off the TV and heading to bed.

“Good night, Clover. Good night, Zwei.”

In the morning, Tai would make waffles for them.

* * *

Slowly, time flowed by, just as slowly as honey trickled, capturing whatever hints of golden sunlight dared grace Patch in its glow.

Clover had visited the haunted house multiple times in the past week for work purposes, but hadn’t expected Tai to call this early in the morning on a Sunday. 

“... What? The ghost made English breakfast?”

“Yeah, Qrow made too much of it! You said he can interact with things around the house, and he wants to be helpful, so of course he had to broil too many eggs and fry too many mushrooms and hash browns,” the blonde answered excitedly from the other side of the line. “You gotta come over. The girls are around, too. I’m sure they’ll love you.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea? You could just keep some of the stuff for lunch or dinner...”

“And have English breakfast literally all day? I like the idea of brunch, but brunchinner? Isn’t that a bit too brunchinny?”

“I’m not sure I get your meaning,” Clover muffled a chuckle.

“Qrow didn’t do that by accident, I’ve got a feeling he likes you. I think he’ll be happy if you come over.”

“Fine. Let me get dressed and I’ll come over.”

“What are you wearing?”

“A grey bathrobe and matching cat slippers.”

“Cats, huh? And here I was thinking you were a dog person.”

“My pyjama pants have dog prints on them.”

“As much as I’d love to see that, hurry up and put some clothes on.” 

“Yes sir!”

* * *

“Uncle Clover is an exorcist?” the blonde girl, just as bright and sunny as her father, prompted, a large cast around her right arm. “Does an exorcist hunt ghosts with a vacuum cleaner?”

“Yes and no, dear,” the younger man replied, stabbing at a delicately crusty hash brown with his fork. “As fun as that would be, I’m not a ghostbuster. I help ghosts, demons, any paranormal creatures trapped on this plane to pass on to their own plane.”

“To fly far far away?” Ruby, the younger girl, mimed an airplane’s skyward trajectory with the fragment of fried egg at the tip of her fork, earning a gentle reprimand from her father.

“Our world is like a big, big haunted house,” Clover explained. “And there’s supposed to be different floors for the living, the dead, and the creatures of heaven and hell and other deities. Each floor is full of its people, and they can sometimes hear other floors, but they never meet. Except when some souls wander off their plane or end up stuck in the stairs, or the elevator when passing between planes, we call that.”

“Like an airport correspondence?” Tai jokes, his kind smile illuminated by the golden sunlight. 

“So my job, as an exorcist, is to make sure that souls don’t get stuck between planes and everyone ends safely on the floor they’re supposed to be in, and no one bumps into each other and gets hurt in the process. I’m like an interdimensional cop, if you like.”

“But what if a ghost wants to stay?” the older sister asked. “What if it’s made a friend in our world?”

“Friend?” Ruby wondered, her silver eyes skeptical as she took a sip from her milk glass. 

“Well, you’re not wrong, Yang,” Clover explained. “Ghosts will stay as long as they want and need to, usually when they still have things to accomplish within this plane. Things like denouncing their killer, or helping a loved one move on after… after what happened to them. So what I do is help ghosts finish what they wish to do here so they can leave peacefully.”

“You grant wishes? Like a genie?” Yang wondered, the smile in her lilac eyes as sincere as her dad’s. “I love genies!”

To prove her point, she showed him a blue and gold lamp-shaped charm on her keyring.

“Yang, no toys on the table,” her father commented warily. “Now that brunch is over, come help me clean the dishes.”

“Her arm’s in a cast -” Clover started.

“No shit, shamrock.”

“- I can help you. Let the girls go rest!”

“No rest!” Ruby pouted.

“No rest, play!” Yang added immediately.

“Fine, girls, you can go play in the garden.”

“Yay!”

“Thanks dad!”

When they cracked the door open to rush outside, the light that flowed in was so bright that it seemed as though the edge of the doorstep was the edge of the universe, as though they went off to another world, to another wonderland.

“Your girls are really something,” Clover remarked, collecting the dirty plates while Tai worked on the greasy pans. “They seem to be coping well.”

“Sometimes, yeah,” their dad replied with a deep sigh. “Sometimes the nightmares come back though, Ruby only started talking again recently, and the teachers have been complaining about Yang’s behaviour at school. She picked a fight with some Cardin boy...”

“I’d be worried if I were him. She’s a fierce one, just like her father.”

“Her fierce and fearless father, who’s terrified of watching horror flicks alone?” Tai deadpanned.

“Don’t sell yourself short. There’s things that are a lot more scary than fictional ghosts, and you’re facing them admirably well.”

“Like the fear that one’s young daughters will never stop being plagued by nightmares for all of their lives?”

“Yeah, like that.”

After tossing away their inedible contents, Clover set the plates down in the sink, next to Tai’s hands actively scrubbing the pans like so many genie lamps. Their fingers touched. A pause followed. 

“So your girls watched Ghostbusters, despite your own distaste for ghost movies?" Clover spoke tentatively.

"Oh, but I wasn't the only one to have a say in their all-important film education. Qrow and his sister Raven and her wife Summer did too… you have no idea how many hours we all spent bickering about who gets the remote during TV nights. Qrow liked the paranormal stuff, but he and Raven would always find inconsistencies and other stupid details to pick apart throughout the movie. No, Summer was the fearless one, teaching the girls to be fearless like her. She… was a tough cookie, you know. And Ruby's a tough cookie too, just like her."

Then Tai talked about their cookies, the ones the family baked during the holiday season, the thrumming oven keeping the old house warm. 

He recalled their morning pancakes, the kids' red noses, tiny hands in tiny gloves as they were dropped off at daycare in the morning, the colourful mittens Raven knitted for them all. 

He recalled she liked to make candles, their flowery perfume saturating the house's ancient wooden panels. 

He recalled how the swing set squealed through the storm, how haunting that sounded, how they all shielded themselves in pillow forts in the large bedroom to wait out the tempest. 

He recalled Qrow would sometimes drive him back to the airport in early mornings so Tai could go back to the busy city, back to his work for duty ever beckoned, that they'd stand outside against the car's warm hood in the chill morning before sunrise and feel time tick, feel time tickle by, feel the earth turn, standing in this weightless moment where it didn't matter what they were, where they stood, for life was too short and they had to make the most of it, cold fingers and wayward lips etching gentle touches onto thick skin so they would never forget.

"Sorry, I talk too much," the blonde apologised, spilling away a large amount of soap water down the sink, releasing ephemeral bubbles that filled the kitchen with tiny, fleeting rainbows. "For once, it's nice to have an adult to talk to."

"No, it's fine, I enjoyed listening to you. It seems like you needed that. We should do this again sometime. But I'll invite you and the girls, next time around."

"Do you also have a house ghost who cooks too much?"

"Sadly no, but I cook too much, and I think it'd be nice."

"Well, it doesn't look like you got too much to eat… or too little. You're a… very proportionate guy, you know? You look really good."

"Thanks," Clover said breathlessly, setting down a pile of clean dishes with a nervous thud. "You're very attractive too."

"Well that's awkward."

"Yeah."

He immediately mentally berated himself for his words, having become more awkward than he realised after spending more time talking to ghosts than living beings. A silence elapsed, both of them watching a small soap bubble that drifted past the space between them - and realising this wouldn't last forever, bubbles burst eventually, and even life wasn’t eternal. They had to catch this instant, catch their chance.

The exorcist reached out for the bubble, capturing its prismatic lights with his fingers for a fraction of a second. Then it was not enough, then he reached further, setting a hand against Tai's tan shoulder. Teal eyes flitted back and forth between his fingers and his host's azure gaze, an implicit question as his hand trailed upward, past the blonde's neck, until he cupped his lightly stubbled jaw and drew him closer. From this proximity, he could smell the sunlight on the older man's skin, he could touch the sunlight filtering through golden eyelashes. The world stopped spinning, and his breath caught in his throat as time came to a stuttering silence. 

"Clover I-I'm sorry. I can't… I do want this, but I can't. Not right now."

The loss of warm was sorely sudden when the brunette removed his hand. Blue eyes didn't look at him, they stared right through him as if he were a ghost. As if he were Qrow. As if Tai wished he were Qrow. And the glare piercing through Clover hurt more than a rain of needles. He couldn't do this. He couldn't be the brutally murdered man the journalist loved and longed for, he couldn't fill the Qrow-shaped gap in his heart, couldn't be the perfected version Tai remembered of a dead man, because no one would ever be up to the task, no one would ever be perfect enough. And yet Tai deserved it. Tai deserved better after all he's been through, all he'd overcome without letting the fire die out in his eyes.

"I… I have to go do something," the younger man declared, promptly leaving the kitchen.

* * *

“We’ve talked about this,” Qrow sighs. “I need you to help Tai, not me, lucky charm. I don’t need your help passing over to another astral plane or whatever.”

The ghost and the exorcist sat on a rusty bench in the garden, the grass still cluttered with iridescent dew droplets that refused to fall, but had not yet vapourised, as if crystallised if only for fleeting instants.

“But if your reason to remain in this plane is to help Tai, you’ll be able to pass over when he’s managed to move on from what happened.”

“And why should I believe you? I’ve never believed in any god above or devils below when I was alive. You’ve seen my novels. I just make that shit up as I go along. Why should it change now?”

“So you didn’t believe in life after death, and yet, here you are, after death.”

“Doesn’t mean I should believe everything else you keep telling me, but nice try.”

“Even if you don’t believe it, even if you don’t care about your own passing, which is in itself respectable and admirable, just do it for Tai. I just need you to give him a sign - he needs a sign from you, and you only. A sign that you’re okay with him letting go of past events and moving on.”

Even through the most horrific happenings, even through death, there was that relentless need to help others ingrained in Qrow, that stubborn selflessness that shone through the semi-transparency of his ghostly crimson eyes, and Clover could tell why Tai valued and missed the novelist so much.

“Should I write him a letter? Do a treasure hunt throughout the house? Take off my rings like in The Sixth Sense? Or are you gonna bring out an Ouija board and creepy little candles?”

“You do you. Literally. Just anything that would help him understand that it’s you, without the shadow of a doubt.”

“If I wrote him a horror novel, that would probably terrify the hell out of him.”

“So don’t do that. Think of how you two used to talk, when you were apart and couldn’t see or touch each other. You probably had your healthy ways to communicate with him, as his lover.”

“Wait. Hold on. Are you really doing all this because you wanna help, or because you have a crush on him and want me out of the picture so you two can date?”

The brunette’s stomach clenched, he felt disgusting, he was disgusting. Trying to manipulate a ghost and a living man, both grieving in the wake of traumatic events. Trying to coerce them just so that he could be loved by those blue eyes in which the flame, the life, the laughter refused to be extinguished. Trying to force himself through the cracks of a still bleeding soul, in a Qrow-shaped hole that he couldn’t fill, that he would never fill. 

But maybe it wasn’t his to fill. Maybe the cracks weren’t his to mend. Maybe time would soften the jagged edges as the lulling tide washed over broken rocks on the beach until only smooth, beautiful stone remained. Not unbroken, but no longer sharp enough to hurt. Maybe all Clover could do was make sure Tai wouldn’t be alone through the healing process, make sure he could find happiness again in the end, make sure that the spark in his deep blue gaze would be ablaze once again, as lively as so many stars in the cloudless night.

“What, did I hit a nerve, exorcist boy? No idea what to do after falling for a client?”

“I want him to be happy, I’m just not sure I’m doing the right thing...”

In truth, Clover had known Tai for such a short time. All he could tell for certain was how much he admired the man’s sunny disposition and unwavering qualities, as well as how much he enjoyed spending time with him, watching movies or even doing the dishes. All he could tell was that he would leave immediately if there were any chance his presence could be harmful to Tai’s healing, even though it would hurt Clover to leave, illogically so, infinitely so - and maybe that was what love was about, he couldn’t tell for certain.

“Hey, I’d have been really scared if you were sure. I just wanted to know if you really care for Tai. He’s a great guy, you know, but he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, and especially now...”

“I don’t want him to get hurt. After all he survived, the last thing he deserves is to get hurt. Same goes for the girls, too. They deserve to know the full truth, so that they won’t have to figure out the hurtful facts by themselves. They deserve a sign to know that it’s really you, really Tai’s lover, the girls’ uncle, who’s haunting this house, watching over them, and willing them to move on.”

“You’re a good guy, Ebi. I can’t tell if you’re the right guy for Tai, but you’re a good guy. I heard you tell the girls the truth, and now I see why that’s important for you. But know that if you hurt even the tiniest pretty blonde hair on that head, I will personally come back from the dead to roast you. Again.”

“Duly noted...” Clover chuckled, barely biting back his relief, “so will you think about it? About leaving a sign, I mean.”

“I’ll think about what I can do.”

“Take your time. I know it’s hard, I know it hurts to let go, even for a ghost.”

"But I'll get there, I promise."

"Pinky promise?"

Qrow quirked a charcoal eyebrow, as if mentally scoffing at the superstitious gesture.

"Pinky promise," he finally replied, holding out his phantomatic little finger.

* * *

It was a dreary day when Tai stepped into the main bedroom. He was dusting all around the house, after having sent the girls off to school again. He’d spent days at his laptop lately, banging his fingers against the keys until his writer’s block would go away, until some interesting article or chronicle would come out. Then, he’d gotten bored and decided some physical work wouldn’t be a bad idea. 

Tai hadn’t stepped in the main bedroom for what appeared as an eternity. He’d slept either in the single bed in the guest room or on the couch. He just hadn’t needed the double bed. He just hadn’t needed to step into the room where he remembered laying curled up against Qrow, the room where the cops found everything after the neighbours called them. Unsurprisingly, the police had tidied the place after collecting the evidence - the bedding was straight, carrying no wrinkles, carrying no memories, no stains of red. Instead, the blankets were blue, baby blue like dreams. What surprised Tai, however, was the note he found on the desk by the window. 

He was tired of tiptoeing around the memories of what happened. He was tired of avoiding the macabre events he’d eventually have to think about, if he wanted to move forward. So he walked straight to the desk and picked up the message. The light filtering through the thin lace curtains dappled the paper, but the handwriting was recognisable. Just as recognisable as the rings on the desk, the sleek steel rings he’d given to Qrow, the rings Qrow had never taken off since. 

Could ghosts cry? Tai wouldn’t know. Tears didn’t stain the page… until they did, and water poured down his cheeks touching his fingers through the paper, and they felt wet, warm, real, alive. Still, he kept reading, until he found sentences he recognised, sentences that reminded him of the novels he’d tried to read, the terrifying novels from the man he’d once loved, when he’d wondered if the inked letters would carry some of the essence of that man he’d once lost. 

“ _ It’s easy for me to say that you should carry on for me, that my dying wish is for not to mope, for you to keep moving forward and find love again. It’s easy for me to say all that. What’s hard is to survive. What’s hard is to try moving forward, to fail, to fall, get up and try again. And you’re doing well. I’m watching over you, and I can see you’re doing well, for yourself and the girls. You’ll get there eventually. _ ”

He can imagine that raspy, gravelly voice, those pale crimson eyes peering down in focus as Qrow pencils those words. 

“ _ Though you are broken, you are whole. You don’t need anyone to complete you, because no part of you is missing. You don’t need anyone to fill in the cracks, because the cracks are not you, I know the cracks don’t define you. It’s okay to be broken sometimes. It’s okay not to be okay sometimes. It’s okay to cry, too. _ ”

So he cried, more tears than he had ever cried in his entire life. Because it was finally okay not to be strong for the sake of the family all the time, okay to break down, okay to mourn, finally okay to cry. 

“ _ But the hardest part is to accept help. The most valiant part is to be vulnerable, even when not alone. Because you deserve not to be alone. Love won’t magically erase your pain and mourning, but still, you deserve not to be alone. _ ”

And Clover was a shoulder to cry on. To cry out all the tears of his body, and then some. To cry until his vision blurred and his eyes were as dry as the dead sea.

And only then did he notice, when he wiped the tears away, just how smooth, solid, steady the shoulder upon which he’d been weeping was. And only then, did he realise it was alright not to be alone. And only then, did he grace the soft shoulder with a gentle, trembling kiss, a wordless promise that things would eventually get better, that no matter how much rain befell upon Patch Island, the sun would always rise.

* * *

“Don’t trip on your sister’s cape,” Clover instructed, checking the mummy bandages were securely fastened around Yang’s body and atop the real band-aids and light cast she wore on her arm and leg, while Tai adjusted his younger daughter’s red cloak. “And say please and thank you when people give you candy.”

“Yes, Uncle Clover!” the blonde girl beamed, the Egyptian headdress they’d fashioned out of aluminium foil on her head gleaming in the candlelight. 

“And be careful of the jack-o’-lanterns on your way out, don’t knock them over,” Tai added, leading the girls to the gate where the Belladonna parents, their daughter, and a flock of other children stood, all dressed up and waiting for Yang and Ruby.

The younger sister held Zwei on a leash in a grandma wolf costume, bags to collect sweets attached to his fluffy back.

“Happy trick-or-treating!” the exorcist called out, executing a salute and a wave in the direction of Kali and Ghira. 

“These are some very nice pumpkin carvings,” Mrs. Belladonna remarked as the costumed crowd walked away down the street.

Tai and Clover had grown the pumpkins in the garden - they weren’t huge, but they’d managed, eventually. With the girls, they’d carved the pumpkins in the garden too, granting them toothy smiles and spooky eyes before putting candles Raven had made inside each lantern. Each flame now carried a scent, a rose-tinted scent, a memory. Lighting each candle projected a shadow, but at least there was light, shining bright through the night.

“I should check how the pumpkin cake is doing in the oven,” Clover declared, racing up the stairs to the house door after the kids had left. 

“I’m sure it’ll taste amazing anyway,” Tai said, running after him to take his hand.

Things hadn’t been easy, mourning hadn’t been easy, living on hadn’t been easy. Learning to trust and to love again hadn’t been easy, far from it. But it didn’t mean they couldn't have happy moments.

“But… it’s like a suspense movie, you know? Watching the oven and wondering when things will start expanding, worrying if they’ll burn or overflow or explode...”

“So watching cakes in the oven scares you more than ghost movies?”

“You could say so...”

The warm amber lights lit the cake tin and its contents, but it would be a while before it was done and the delicious scent of pumpkin would waft to their nostrils through the old kitchen.

“Hmm, so should we watch an actual film while waiting, or do you want to watch the oven instead?” Tai asked, jokingly pulling up a chair for his boyfriend.

“Or I could just watch you instead,” the brunette retorted, sitting down and dragging the other into his lap. “You’re gorgeous.”

The oven’s lighting caressed each of Tai’s features, enhancing the warmth of his straw-coloured hair and transmuting the stray silver strands gold, too. The twinkle in his eyes was a furnace, and the heat was enough for Clover’s heart to melt.

“It’s warm here,” the blonde said.

“Yes.”

Slowly, wordlessly, their lips met in the middle, unknowing of who initiated it and frankly uncaring. Soft kisses, hesitant, gentle, mapped tender skin, mapped scarred souls, adoring every wrinkle, every imperfection, every memory, everything. And that was enough, that was whole, that was what it felt like to be alive.


End file.
